Chapter 62: Shadows and Shipwrights

The Titan’s Glory drifted silently through the thick, white cloud cover, completely hidden from the world below.

I wasn’t about to test my luck by parking a massive, Adam Wood flying fortress right in the middle of Water 7 while Fleet Admiral Sengoku was actively breathing down my neck.

Standing on the deck, I looked down at the Night-Terror Ferret resting on my shoulder.

“Take us down,” I ordered.

The jade ferret chattered, leaping to the wooden planks.

Its shadow instantly expanded, pooling outward like spilled ink until it swallowed the entire away team—myself, Law, Jasmine, Robin, Perona, Bepo, the Digimon, and little Mayday.

The world went pitch black for a fraction of a second, accompanied by the strange, weightless sensation of the Shadow-Skip.

We emerged seamlessly into a damp, shaded alleyway in the heart of Water 7, the sounds of rushing canals and bustling markets instantly hitting our ears.

Gammamon stepped out of my shadow, immediately crossing his little arms and pouting at the brick wall.

“Every time we come here, we have to sneak in!” the white triceratops complained, kicking a loose pebble.

“I can’t wait to come here normally for once and just walk through the front door!”

“I promise, buddy,” I chuckled, ruffling his horns.

“Next time we visit Paradise, we’ll take a normal vacation.

But right now, we’re on the clock.”

We kept a low profile, weaving through the backstreets and utilizing Law’s Room to bypass the main security checkpoints.

Within twenty minutes, we had slipped through the employee entrance of the Galley-La Company Headquarters and entered Mayor Iceburg’s heavily soundproofed private office.

“Bro!” Franky shouted, striking his signature pose the moment we walked in, his massive cyborg shoulders gleaming.

“SUPER to see you!”

Iceburg, sitting behind his desk with a pet mouse in his front pocket, looked like he hadn’t slept in three days.

He let out a long sigh, though a genuine smile broke through his exhaustion.

“Victor.

Good to see you alive.

Let’s see these impossible materials.”

I stepped forward, placing the Sun Wood box and the ancient brass Sling Ring onto the blueprints scattered across his desk.

“At first glance, I was thinking we mount it onto a heavy-duty gauntlet,” Franky mused, his cyborg eye whirring as it scanned the items.

“Wire the wood into a bracer, put the ring on the knuckles—”

“No,” I interrupted, shaking my head.

“I don’t want a gauntlet.

I want a Gun.”

Iceburg raised an eyebrow.

“A gun that shoots portals?”

“Exactly,” I said, tapping the Sun Wood.

“Here’s the design.

The Sun Wood needs to be integrated along the barrel and the outer casing.

It has to remain exposed so it can constantly absorb ambient starlight and charge itself.

The Sling Ring will act as the core chamber.”

“And the activation mechanism?” Franky asked, already pulling out a pencil.

“The trigger,” I explained.

“When I pull the trigger, the internal mechanics need to rapidly spin the Sling Ring inside the chamber.

The sheer rotational friction of the brass, combined with the supernatural energy of the Sun Wood acting as a battery, should project the dimensional gateway outward from the barrel.”

Franky stared at the items for a long moment.

Then, his eyes literally turned into glowing, mechanical stars.

“A sci-fi, dimension-hopping magic gun,” Franky whispered, wiping a tear from his eye.

“It’s beautiful.

It is the ultimate engineering challenge.

Iceburg, clear my schedule!”

“It’s going to take precise calibration to ensure the rotational friction doesn’t shatter the brass,” Iceburg noted, his professional curiosity entirely hooked.

He looked up at me.

“Give us seven days.

We’ll have it perfectly integrated.”

With the artifact left in the capable hands of the master shipwrights, the crew dispersed to enjoy some well-deserved downtime.

Robin and Perona took Mayday, Gammamon, and Palmon out into the city to ride the Yagara Bulls and eat authentic Water Meat, letting the little girl act like a normal kid for an afternoon.

Meanwhile, Jasmine and Law found a quiet spot away from the bustling crowds.

They sat on a set of mossy stone steps leading down into one of the city’s quieter canals, the water gently lapping against the stone.

“It’s peaceful here,” Jasmine said softly, watching a stray cat hop across a bridge in the distance.

Law sat with his nodachi resting against his shoulder, his long legs stretched out.

He looked at the beautiful, thriving city of water, but his silver eyes were distant.

“I used to think places like this were a lie,” Law murmured, his voice uncharacteristically vulnerable.

“When you spend your formative years hiding under the rotting corpses of your neighbors just to escape a quarantine zone…

peace feels like a trap.”

Jasmine turned to look at him.

She didn’t offer pity—she knew Law would hate that.

She just listened.

“Everything in this world tries to kill you,” Law continued, staring at the water.

“The Amber Lead sickness inside my own body.

The Marines.

Doflamingo.

I spent my entire life just fighting to survive until tomorrow.

I never actually planned for what comes after Doflamingo is dead.”

“Survival is exhausting,” Jasmine agreed softly.

She pulled her knees to her chest.

“My childhood was vastly different, but…

I understand the weight.”

Law glanced at her.

“Victor said your world wasn’t a warzone.”

“It wasn’t,” Jasmine nodded.

“But we had our own wars.

Our father was assassinated over a land dispute by Alister’s family.

Our mother wasted away from the grief.

Victor…

Victor took on the entire world to keep us safe.

He took the hits, he fought Alister, he built our lives from nothing.”

She looked down at her hands.

“When I was young, my biggest fear in the world wasn’t monsters or Marines.

It was being a burden to my older brother.

I watched him carry this immense, crushing weight of our family’s survival on his shoulders, and I swore I would never add to it.

So, I pushed myself.

I trained, I fought, I joined the Revolutionaries…

all so he wouldn’t have to worry about me.”

Law stared at her, recognizing the mirrored reflection of his own fierce independence and trauma.

They were entirely different, yet forged in the exact same fire.

“He worries anyway,” Law noted dryly.

“Constantly,” Jasmine laughed, a bright, genuine sound that echoed off the canal walls.

She bumped her shoulder against his.

“But we’re family.

We carry the weight together now.

You aren’t fighting alone anymore, Trafalgar.”

Law adjusted his spotted hat, pulling the brim down slightly to hide the faint, genuine smile that tugged at his lips.

“I suppose I’m not.”

Later that evening, Victor, Law, and Jasmine commandeered a small, private booth in a quiet cafe on the upper levels of the city.

Spread across the wooden table was a highly detailed, hand-drawn map of Totto Land, courtesy of Revolutionary intelligence.

“This escalated incredibly quickly,” Law grumbled, rubbing his temples as he stared at the map.

“We went from ‘asking a girl for help’ to ‘infiltrating the fortified territory of an Emperor of the Sea to kidnap her daughter’.”

“It’s not ideal,” I admitted, tracing a line across the map.

“But Totto Land’s defenses are absurd.

Every single door, tree, and ship is a living Homie infused with soul fragments.

They act as a massive surveillance network reporting directly to Big Mom.

We can’t negotiate; she’d just kill us and take the ship.”

“Our target is Cacao Island,” Jasmine pointed to an island on the outer perimeter of the archipelago.

“Charlotte Pudding runs a private cafe there.

She’s rarely on Whole Cake Island.”

“We can’t fly the Roc in.

It’s too big, it will trigger the Territorial Sea Slugs,” Law analyzed.

“It has to be a stealth drop.

We—”

The bell above the cafe door chimed merrily.

Robin, Perona, Mayday, and the Digimon walked in, carrying bags of souvenirs and snacks.

“We brought pastries!” Perona announced, floating over to our booth.

Mayday happily squeezed into the booth next to Robin, munching on a massive, sugary cookie.

Palmon trotted over, her leafy vines swaying as she peered over the table at the map of Totto Land.

“What are you guys doing?” Palmon asked innocently.

“Trying to figure out how to sneak into a heavily guarded island, kidnap a woman with memory powers, and sneak out without getting murdered by a Yonko,” I sighed, leaning back against the leather seat.

Palmon tilted her large, green flower-head, looking at me with pure, unadulterated confusion.

“But Victor,” Palmon blinked.

“Why don’t you just use your swords to make a copy of her?”

Jasmine froze.

She slowly raised her hands, dragged them down her face, and let out a loud, agonizing groan.

“Oh my god.

I am an absolute idiot.

I completely forgot.”

Law, Robin, and Brook stared at Jasmine, completely lost.

“Forgot what?” Law demanded.

I paused, blinking at Palmon, before a slow realization dawned on me.

I looked at the crew.

“Right.

That’s the surface-level stuff,” I said, clearing my throat.

I looked around at their confused faces.

“Out of curiosity, what did you guys think the giant jade animals I always summon were?”

“Magical constructs?” Robin guessed.

“Spirits trapped in the swords!” Brook chimed in.

“I thought you just really liked fancy statues,” Bepo mumbled.

I shook my head.

“No.

Those jade animals—the Gorilla, the Spider, the Unicorn—are clones of the apex predators from the time-dilation island in the Calm Belt where we just retrieved the Sun Wood box.

The weapon’s true power is the ‘Collector’ aspect.

The blades are forged from a mysterious material that absorbs blood.

If I coat the blades in the blood of any creature, the weapon can manifest a perfect, autonomous ‘Jade Clone’ of that exact being.”

The cafe was dead silent.

“A perfect clone,” Law repeated slowly, his silver eyes wide.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Retaining all of their physical strength…

and a perfect copy of their Devil Fruit abilities.”

Law, Robin, Brook, Bepo, and Perona stared at me in absolute, jaw-dropping shock.

The idea of a weapon that could duplicate Devil Fruit users was completely world-breaking.

Little Mayday, having absolutely no idea what was going on but sensing the mood, stopped chewing her cookie and perfectly mimicked Law’s wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression.

“So…” Law said, his voice dangerously quiet.

“We don’t need to kidnap Charlotte Pudding.”

“No,” I grinned, tapping the map of Cacao Island.

“I don’t need the girl.

I just need one vial of her blood.

If I get that, I can summon a Jade Clone of Pudding right here on the ship, and the clone can use the Memo Memo no Mi to copy Mayday’s memory into my head.”

Jasmine slammed her hands on the table, grinning fiercely.

“The plan changes right now!

It’s a surgical strike.

Victor and Law, you two shadow-skip directly into her cafe in the dead of night.

Extract a single vial of blood, and vanish into thin air before anyone even realizes you were there.”

“A pure stealth infiltration,” Law agreed, a dark, calculating smirk finally replacing his stress.

“In and out.

Big Mom won’t suspect a thing.”

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